Candles have obviously been around for a while.
They're old technology, but even technology as old as this can continue to evolve.
One of the recent changes in the world of candle making has been the development of soy candle wax.
When most people think of candle wax, they probably think of paraffin, and with good reason.
Paraffin is by far the most commonly used candle wax.
But it would be a mistake to think it is the only one.
You have probably heard of beeswax.
Bees make this wax to build honeycombs in which to store honey.
When the beekeeper removes the honey, the empty comb is harvested for its wax.
What was once the best naturally occurring wax was made from whale oil.
This isn't used any more because of over-hunting of whales in times past.
I've never seen spermaceti wax, but I admit to being curious about it.
Apparently it made excellent candles that stored well, burn cleanly and gave off a bright white light.
However, as curious as I am I agree that it's not worth killing whales to make candles.
Several plants have waxy coats that can be used for making candles.
Bayberry wax is probably the best known of these.
These waxes are difficult to produce and in limited supply.
For example, it takes about 15 pounds of bayberries to produce less than a pound of wax.
Because of this, these waxes are rarely available.
In the past, tallow (rendered from various animal fats) was used to make candles, but candles made from tallow are pretty poor candles.
They smoke and smell badly.
Just how badly depends on the type of animal fat, but none of them are great.
That is why paraffin took over once it became available in late 19th century.
However, paraffin is a residual of the petroleum refining process.
Because of this, many people have been interested in developing a renewable, naturally occurring wax suitable for candle making.
Soy candle wax is the best answer to date.
Soy beans have a high fat content and soybean oil is derived from them.
However, soybean oil is liquid at room temperature so it's not suitable for making candles.
But that can be changed.
Whether a fat is liquid or solid at room temperature depends on its degree of saturation.
Fat molecules contain hydrogen atoms and a fat is "saturated" if it can't hold any more hydrogen.
In general, saturated fats (think butter and animal fats) are solid at room temperature and unsaturated fats are liquid (think corn oil or safflower oil, as well as soybean oil).
It's possible to saturate an unsaturated fat by adding hydrogen.
That's part of how margarine is made from vegetable oils.
When manufactures do the same thing with soybean wax, the result is a wax suitable for making candles.
Now that description admittedly simplifies the situation, and the soybean oil is treated in different ways buy different manufactures, but the end result is a candle wax from a renewable resource.
One difficulty with pure soy wax is that it is relatively soft.
It works great in container candles, but isn't very good for making tapers or pillar candles.
You can compensate for that problem by blending soy wax with paraffin and hardening additives.
If you do that, the resultant wax can be used for making freestanding candles such as taper candles and pillar candles.
However, if you are going to use 100% soy wax you will probably get the best results if you use it to make container candles.
You are probably familiar with container candles.
These are candles in which the melted wax is poured into a nonflammable container with the wick positioned in the center.
The candles never remove from the container, but rather is burned within it.
There's a lot more to know about soy candle wax, one the best places to get details on what it is and how to use it is: